#19 'Mbube' by Solomon Linda & the Evening Birds (1939)

SONG

"LOVE IT! However, I do have to sing # In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight... # It's just a feel good melody." - LC

Written by: Solomon Linda
Producer: Griffiths Motsieloa
Label: Singer

Album: Mbube (1939)

FACTS

• The song's history is one clouded by cultural exploitation, starting in a music studio where Solomon Linda (a migrant Zulu musician) and his group were paid ten shillings for their original song.
• 'Mbube' ('Lion') was an instant hit, selling 10,000 in the Forties.
• A decade later, American folk musician Pete Seeger misheard the Zulu refrain and turned the song into the pop hit 'Wimoweh'. 
• In 1961, George David Weiss, Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore added smoother arrangements and exotic lyrics, copyrighting what became "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" released by The Tokens.
• Despite the song's success, Linda died a pauper in 1962. He and his estate received almost none of the royalties the song has generated (including an estimate $15 million alone from its use in Disney's The Lion King).
• It was only in 2006, under the threat of legal action, that publishers Alibene Music agreed to a financial settlement with Linda's heirs.

"Wimoweh" (1952)

"The Lion Sleeps Tonight" (1961)

#18 'The Gallis Pole' by Lead Belly (1939)

SONG

"I like the intro :) It sounds quite musical compared to a lot of this early music. Yeah, this is one of the better ones." - LC

Written by: Huddie Ledbetter, Alan Lomax

Producer: John Lomax, Alan Lomax

Label: Library of Congress

FACTS

• The song is a variation of "The Maid Freed from the Gallows" a centuries-old folk song about a condemned maiden pleading for someone to buy her freedom from the executioner.
• 
  
  The Lead Belly version is performed on acoustic twelve string guitar, and following an introductory phrase reminiscent of the vocal melody, Lead Belly launches into a furious fingerpicking pattern.
• Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter's was discovered in prison by John and Alan Lomax in 1934.
• Lead Belly had already sung himself out of prison once but his violent temper had seen him locked up again.
• When the Lomaxs came through looking for singers who were not "contaminated" by the modern world, they were hugely impressed with Lead Belly, who played twelve-string guitar and knew literally hundreds of songs.
• Lead Belly apparently learnt this song from Hillbilly musicians and adapted it.
• While he was alive, Lead Belly was never rich or famous but his songs became hits for Lonnie Donegan and The Beach Boys.

#17 'Over the Rainbow' by Judy Garland (1939)

SONG

"I love this version of this song! The Wizard of Oz is a classic film :) Of course I knew this one already, but it had to make the cut really didn't it?!" - LC

Written by: Harold Arlen, E.Y. "Yip" Harburg
Producer: Uncredited
Label: MGM

FACTS

•  It was written specifically for the movie The Wizard of Oz.
• The American Film Institute also ranked "Over the Rainbow" the greatest movie song of all time on the list of "AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs".
• The song was initially deleted from the film after a preview in San Luis Obispo, because the MGM chief executive and the producer thought the song "slowed down the picture" and that "the song sounds like something for Jeanette MacDonald, not for a little girl singing in a barnyard". The persistence of associate producer Arthur Freed and Garland's vocal coach/mentor Roger Edens to keep the song in the picture paid off.
• This song became Judy Garland's signature song.
• Judy Garland is the mother of Liza Minnelli.
• Judy died of an accidental overdose in 1969, aged 47.

Recommended songs by this artist...

For Me and My Gal (1942)

The Trolley Song (1944)

#16 'Strange Fruit' by Billie Holiday (1939)

SONG

"This song is both beautifully haunting and absolutely sickening (due to the subject matter). It conjures up all kinds of vile images but it reminds me that not-so-long-ago a large proportion of people in the 'civilised' world thought that lynching people they deemed to be different was the way forward. Watching her sing it almost made me cry." - LC

Written by: Abel Meeropol (credited as Lewis Allan).
Producer:Uncredited
Label:Commodore

FACTS

• It was written by teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem and condemned American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had occurred chiefly in the South but also in all other regions of the United States.
• In 1978 Holiday's version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
• Because of the poignancy of the song, when Holiday performed shows she would close with it, the waiters would stop all service in advance, the room would be in darkness except for a spotlight on Holiday's face, and there would be no encore.

LYRICS

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,

And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Recommended songs by this artist..

Fine and Mellow (1939)

Gloomy Sunday (1941)

God Bless The Child (1941)

Love For Sale (1954)

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#15 'Hellhound on My Trail' by Robert Johnson (1937)

SONG

"It's very... bluesy, but it's mainly vocals and raw gritty ones at that. I appreciate that his style won him a lot of fans but I'm not one of them." - LC

 

Written by: Robert Johnson
Producer: Don Law
Label: Vocalion

FACTS

•  Robert Johnson recorded this song in his secoond and last recording session on Sunday 20th June 1937. He died on 16th August, 1938 at the age of 27!
• He is considered the very first member of the 27 Club - the collective name given to a group of influential musicians whom all died at the tender age of 27.
•  Rolling Stone magazine considers this version of the song "essential listening".

Recommended songs by this artist...

#14 Cross Road Blues (1936)

#14 'Cross Road Blues' by Robert Johnson (1936)

SONG




"I can see why people would like this song but it's a little too intense for me. I don't think I'll listen to it again." - LC

Written by: Robert Johnson

Producer: Don Law

Label: Vocalion

FACTS

• The lyrics tell of the narrator's failed attempts to hitch a ride from an intersection as night approaches.
• According to legend, as a young man living on a plantation in rural Mississippi, Robert Johnson was branded with a burning desire to become a great blues musician. He was "instructed" to take his guitar to a crossroad near Dockery Plantation at midnight. There he was met by a large black man (the Devil) who took the guitar and tuned it. The "Devil" played a few songs and then returned the guitar to Johnson, giving him mastery of the instrument. This was in effect, a deal with the Devil mirroring the legend of Faust. In exchange for his soul, Robert Johnson was able to create the blues for which he became famous.
• The song had frequently been linked to stories of Johnson selling his soul to the devil for  the ability to play music, although nothing in the actual lyrics speaks of these events.
• Historian Leon Litwack and others state that the song refers to the common fear felt by blacks who were discovered out alone after dark; that Johnson was likely singing about the desperation of finding his way home from an unfamiliar place as quickly as possible because of a fear of lynching.
• The song has been covered by  a huge range of artists, including The Doors, Bob Dylan, Free, Elmore James, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jimi Hendrix, Rush, Van Halen, Steve Miller Band, Page and Plant, and Cyndi Lauper ft. Jonny Lang.

Recommended songs by this artist...

#15 Hellhound on My Trail (1937)

 

#13 'Can the Circle Be Unbroken (By and By)' by The Carter Family (1935)

SONG

"This song has grown on me after a few listens. It sounds like a proper country song and it makes me wanna join in with the chorus. Definitely one of the better ones, so far." - LC

Written by: A. P. Carter, Ada R. Habershon, Charles H. Gabriel
Producer: Ralph Peer
Label: Okeh

FACTS

• It is a country/folk song reworked by A. P. Carter from the hymn "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" by Ada R. Habershon and Charles H. Gabriel.
• The song's lyrics concern the death, funeral, and mourning of the narrator's mother.
• The song has been covered by a large collection of artists but the ones that caught my eye include Bob Dylan, The Black Crowes, Spirit of the West with The Wonder Stuff, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Jeff Buckley.
• Its refrain was incorporated into the Carl Perkins song "Daddy Sang Bass" and the Atlanta song "Sweet Country Music."
• June Carter (daughter of Maybelle Addington Carter, who can be heard singing on this track), began singing with The Carter Family four years after this song was released and went on to marry Johnny Cash.